Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a refrigerator having an improved structure of a gasket which maintains a seal between a main body and a door.
In general, refrigerators are home appliances that include storage compartments for storing food and cool air supply devices for supplying cool air to the storage compartments to keep the food fresh.
Refrigerators can be classified based on a type of the storage compartments and a type of the doors. When a storage compartment is horizontally partitioned by a horizontal partition, a refrigerator can be classified into a top mounted freezer (TMF) type refrigerator that has a freezing compartment at an upper side and a refrigerating compartment at a lower side, and a bottom mounted freezer (BMF) type refrigerator that has a refrigerating compartment at the upper side and a freezing compartment at the lower side.
Additionally, a side-by-side (SBS) type refrigerator has a storage compartment that is vertically partitioned by a vertical partition, with a freezing compartment on one side and a refrigerating compartment on an opposite side. A French door refrigerator (FDR) type refrigerator has a storage compartment that is horizontally partitioned by a horizontal partition, with a refrigerating compartment on an upper side, and a freezing compartment at a lower side, and the refrigerating compartment in the upper side is opened or closed by a pair of doors.
Meanwhile, a gasket is coupled to a rear side of a refrigerator door and seals a gap separating the door from a main body when the door is closed.
The gasket seals a gap separating the door from the main body, simultaneously absorbs an impact caused by a collision of the door and the main body when the door is closed, and plays a role to decrease energy consumption by minimizing or reducing heat transfer due to a temperature difference between an inside and outside of the main body.
The inside of the gasket is provided to have a complicated partitioning structure to absorb an impact caused by a collision of the door and the main body and minimize a heat transfer due to a temperature difference of an inside and outside of the main body.
The gasket is manufactured by extrusion molding to cause the inside of the gasket to have a complicated partitioning structure.
The gasket includes an upper gasket which corresponds to an upper edge of the rear side of the door, a lower gasket which corresponds to a lower edge of the rear side of the door, a left gasket which corresponds to a left edge of the rear side of the door and a right gasket which corresponds to a right edge of the rear side of the door.
After the upper gasket, the lower gasket, the left gasket, and the right gasket are separately manufactured by extrusion molding, magnets are inserted into the inside of these gaskets.
After magnets are inserted into the inside of the gaskets, the upper gasket, the lower gasket, the left gasket and the right gasket are bonded to each other and coupled to the rear side of the door.
Since the upper gasket, the lower gasket, the left gasket and the right gasket are coupled to the rear side of the door after the gaskets are bonded to each other, an oblique bonding trace remains in the gaskets, so there is a problem in which the oblique bonding trace is exposed to the outside when the door is open.
Additionally, when a distance between the main body and the door changes or the gasket gets dirty, and when the whole gasket should be replaced, the replacement cost is very high.